In a turbine engine provided with a turbine, such as a gas turbine, a compressor compresses air of the atmospheric pressure and supplies compressed air to a combustor, the combustor mixes fuel into the compressed air for combustion, and a turbine recovers power. Therefore, the pressure of the fuel must be higher than that of air at the exit of the compressor. Accordingly, atmospheric combustion is impossible and heat of the atmospheric exhaust gas cannot be used. Therefore, the turbine engine provided with a gas turbine has difficulty in using various gaseous fuels, solid fuels and unused high-temperature gases. It is structurally impossible for the turbine engine to reduce emission of heat from the system by circulating the exhaust gas like gas engines do, which is disadvantageous in respect of thermodynamic cycle.
As mentioned above, in the conventional gas turbine, the pressurized fuel must be supplied to the combustor because the pressure in the combustor is high. Since the high-temperature, high-pressure gas flows into the turbine, it is difficult to recover power from unused, high-temperature or atmospheric exhaust gases produced by manufacturing processes by the turbine.
To recover heat from a high-temperature exhaust gas discharged from a high-temperature heating furnace, a ceramic heat exchanger formed of highly heat-resistant ceramic materials is necessary. The cost of heat recovery using such a ceramic heat exchanger is intolerably high. Even if heat could be recovered, electric power cannot be recovered.
A prior art atmospheric combustion turbine that expands a high-temperature gas of the atmospheric pressure produced by atmospheric combustion in a gas turbine, recovers heat from the gas by a regenerative heat exchanger and a cooler, and sucks, pressurizes and discharges the gas by a compressor is disclosed in, for example, JP 2002-242700 A.